


so am i; so are we

by Princex_N



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Autism, Autistic Moomin, Autistic Snufkin, Conversations, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Gen, Labels, Self-Acceptance, Stimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 15:16:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18478873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: In which Moomin comes to a realization, and decides to ask Snufkin about it.





	so am i; so are we

The idea first occurs to Moomin almost a full week after Spring first comes, and he has to stop and wonder why he hadn't thought of it before. 

He and Snufkin are resting near the river after a long day, during a break in their usual activities, the space before Moomin heads home for dinner, before Snufkin has decided if he'll follow along or if he'll eat on his own. There's a companionable silence between them, a lack of pressure to try and keep a conversation going, and instead just a shared space and appreciation of each other's presence in it. 

Moomin is almost on the verge of falling asleep when something pushes Snufkin into sitting up, back straight and muscles tense, like he's waiting for something. Moomin considers looking for the words to ask what had caught his attention when the distant rumble of thunder cuts him off before he can get a chance. 

It's really less of the  _sound_ that distracts Moomin, and a lot more of the way Snufkin reacts to it. The smile on his face when he hears the thunder, the way he leans into the wind rustling his hair and scarf, the thrilled sway of his body as he gets caught up in the sensations. 

And something in Moomin's head clicks. 

He doesn't say anything about it yet, instead keeping himself quiet and unobtrusive as Snufkin rocks back and forth, still smiling contentedly, until the threat of being rained on is nearly upon them, and Moomin switches his thoughts onto the track of trying to come up with a way to convince Snufkin to spend the night inside the house instead of outside in his tent. 

But he doesn't forget the thought entirely. 

Instead, he waits until a few days later, when Snufkin has gone to the river by himself to have some time alone and catch some fish, to go into Papa's study to find the book that might help him. 

The same one Mama had read when Moomin was little, to learn more about autism. 

(The same one  _he_ had read when he was younger, to try and answer his own questions about what made him so different.) 

This time when he flips through the pages, he keeps Snufkin at the back of his mind, and everything he reads feels like something slotting into place. The way Snufkin reacts to certain things, the way he needs to be alone for so long, the way he refuses to change his yearly routines (even if sometimes he seems as upset as Moomin is when it's time for him to leave), the way his voice is flatter than anyone else Moomin knows. 

Moomin wonders if he shouldn't have noticed earlier but thinks that maybe he had known the whole time. Maybe not in so many words, but he'd always felt the most Normal around Snufkin. He could read Snufkin better than he could read anyone else, because the way Snufkin's body spoke made more sense than anyone else's body language ever had. Snufkin has always made more sense to Moomin than anyone else. 

If Moomin's hypothesis is right, then it's because they've been the same since the beginning. 

Part of him wants to take the book down to the river right that moment, to show Snufkin the lists and anecdotes and to let him know. Or to ask if he'd already known; if he'd known the whole time. But another part of him is more hesitant about it, worried about being wrong or about being laughed at (not that Snufkin has ever really laughed at Moomin for anything, although he  _does_ sometimes like to say 'I told you so'.) 

So, he decides to keep it to himself, instead. Just for a while longer, to look a little harder and make sure, or maybe just to find the courage to bring it up at all. 

He thinks about it as he watches Snufkin play idly with the brim of his hat or flap his hands excitedly at the sight of a bird he likes, as he listens to him talk steadily about the problem with the park rangers for almost a full hour, sees him get overwhelmed by the noise of an argument between Little My and Sniff. 

It's not until many days later,  _weeks_ later, that the urge to ask becomes too strong to ignore any longer, even though Moomin still hasn't figured out a better way to broach the subject. Although, he supposes, sometimes the only way to ask a question is to ask it straight out. 

"I'm autistic," he says aloud, startling Snufkin into looking up from where his lure sits in the river. 

"Yes," Snufkin says placidly. "I know." 

He doesn't interrupt to ask what Moomin had been trying to say, he just waits while he gets his thoughts together. 

Moomin doesn't look at his friend when he says, "I think you might be, too." 

When he finally decides to risk a glance, he sees Snufkin's eyes wide and fixed somewhere around Moomin's shoulder. It takes him a long time to reply, long enough for Moomin to start to get worried. Sometimes the way he says things hurts people's feelings even though he didn't mean for it to, maybe that had happened again?

But when Snufkin finally speaks, he doesn't  _sound_ upset. "Maybe you're right," he says, voice almost as smooth as it usually is. (Moomin likes Snufkin's voice, likes to listen to him talk. He doesn't like the idea that he had been the cause for it to shift into something less pleasant.) 

He doesn't say anything else after that. Mama says that sometimes people not saying anything else about a subject means that they don't want to talk about it anymore. Moomin racks his brain for a different thing to talk about, but he can't get rid of the worry that he had messed up somehow. It makes his chest twist uncomfortably to think about.

Snufkin says it's best to just say what's on your mind, instead of spending time worrying about what someone else will think about it. 

"Did I hurt your feelings?" he asks, finally. 

Snufkin seems surprised by that too. 

"You got quiet," Moomin tries to explain. It doesn't sound like very compelling evidence when he says it like that. 

(Sometimes he wishes he was more like Snufkin, who never seems to think twice about what other people think or feel about him.) 

"You didn't hurt my feelings," Snufkin assures him, and then, to Moomin's surprise, he continues. "I've thought about it before - if I'm autistic like you." He stops talking again, but Moomin has known him long enough now to tell the differences in his silences now. He's thinking right now. Moomin keeps his mouth shut and his eyes on the steady rippling of the river beneath them, the same way Snufkin does for him. "Sometimes I think about it too much," his face screws up the way it does when he encounters something that upsets him, "and I don't like that. So, I choose not to." He shrugs, "I'm me. And if I'm different than other people, then I just am. That's enough for me." 

Moomin supposes that makes sense. "I like knowing," he points out anyway, because he does. He likes to have a reason for things, and to have a label is to have a reason - something certain and set that explains the differences between him and other people, the ones that otherwise make him worry for hours. 

Snufkin just nods. "People can be different like that," he says, voice calm and knowing. 

Snufkin has a way of speaking sometimes that used to make Moomin worry, worry that he was too dumb or childish for Snufkin to like, because Snufkin is good at explaining things and making it seem so obvious when he does. Mama had been the one to point out that sometimes it goes the other way too - that there are times when Snufkin is the one who doesn't understand something that Moomin thinks is obvious.  _It's not a matter of smarts_ , she'd said _, we all have different strengths - that's what makes it so important that we all help each other out_. 

When Moomin worries about something, he likes to follow it through. Chase all of the answers and explanations and possibilities until there's nothing left to wonder about. But Snufkin doesn't like to do it that way - when he worries about something, he always just chooses to stop thinking about it entirely instead. 

 _People can be different like that_. 

"Okay," Moomin says, satisfied enough to let that be the end of it. He'd said what he wanted to, and he isn't worried that he'd hurt Snufkin's feelings anymore, and that's really all he needs. "You're my best friend either way," he adds, not quite sure who he's reassuring. 

Snufkin smiles at him for that, the expression soft around his mouth and eyes (Moomin likes this one of Snufkin's smiles the most - it took him a long time to learn them, but he can tell this one from the others easily not; he's the only one Snufkin ever gives it to. Moomin doesn't have to be good at telling what it means to know that it's special). "You're my best friend too, Moomin." 

That, if nothing else, is enough for Moomin to be happy. 

(It's all he's ever really needed to be happy, really.) 

**Author's Note:**

> This might be a sort of controversial take, but for me personally, there are still times when i have a LOT of intense doubt about whether or not i really 'qualify' as Autistic, and sometimes it's helpful for me to take a step back and remember that the label doesn't matter as much as me living as my authentic self does. labels can be helpful, they can be Great, but sometimes they can cause more stress than relief and it's okay to take a step back from then when that happens!
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


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